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When will a diesel be available for my aircraft? |
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News, facts, and comments on the coming revolution for piston-engine aircraft.News of November 05, 2005Diesel Saga 1 - Did you know that the Hindenburg Airship had diesel engines? Read on, it has to do with your future diesel plane.The Hindenburg had 4 Daimler-Benz 1,100 HP diesels, to carry 50 passengers plus a big crew. It was over 800 ft long, and over 140 ft diameter at its largest section. And it needed as much fuel to cross the Atlantic as a Boeing 747: kerosene, in both cases. But a 747 can carry 7 times more passengers and goes some 7 times faster. Its predecessor the Graf Zeppelin, by far the most successful airship – it made 74 return trips to Rio de Janeiro, several round the world trips with passengers, never had an accident and ended as scrap metal – had 5 diesels: 12 cyl., 570 HP Maybach. Visit http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Graf-Zeppelin-Hamburg-Amerika-1937_i421193_.htm Other aircraft using diesels were flying the German Junkers 2-stroke, Jumo 200-series with opposite pistons and double geared crankshafts, the most fuel efficient engine ever designed. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_205. and http://www.enginehistory.org/Diesels/CH4.pdf They were the Dornier 18 flying boat, the Junkers 86 bomber, the Blohm & Voss Ha 139 flying boat (German equivalent of the PBY), and the superb Dornier 26 4 engine flying boat with a range of 4,400 miles, Visit: http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/do26.html Engine power went from 500 to 1,000 HP. Projects were in development at the end of the war aiming at much higher powers. Why was the aero diesel concept abandoned after WW2? The most obvious reason was that it was essentially a German technology and that the German engineering teams, plus most of their blueprints, test benches and results, and labs had been captured, destroyed, or dispersed. Also both the allies and the Soviets were obsessed by taking control of what was obviously superior, and of a strategic nature, in German know how: rocket engines and their fuels, rocket missiles, possible nuclear research, turbojets, and high speed aircraft. Diesels would have been of interest for commercial airliners, but in that field the apparent superiority was American with the superb Wright and P&W radials, and to some extent British with the remarkable Bristol Hercules sleeve-valve radials. Also the Atlantic scene had changed: Before the war, there were no airfields; therefore the obsession with flying boats and airships that do not need one, and with ultra long range planes which the Germans were thinking of. After the war, airfields were in place in Gander, Goose Bay, Shannon, Reykjavik, the Azores… PanAm’s DC3s could fly across the Atlantic in three 1,500 NM legs. It was a long trip, but reliable; surplus DC3s were a dime a dozen; and gasoline was cheap… So the aero diesel engines were moved in the drawer of “wrong time, wrong specs” technology, together with airships and mega-flying boats. However, Mercedes-Benz had already developed a diesel sedan, and went on after the war, being for a long time the sole manufacturer of such diesel passenger cars. They were quickly discovered by European taxi drivers who for a long time were the sole supporters of that technology. Why? This will be my next story on the aerodiesel saga. posted at 6:33 PM |
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